ironclads approaching us at all their speed, and then not three miles
distant from us. But the launch was at our side, and as Black leant
over, and the new light lit up his bloodshot eyes and haggard face, he
asked, with hoarseness in his voice--

"Have ye got the oil?"

"Not a drop!" replied the cox.

The strong man reared himself straight up, and he turned to Karl, at
his side. In that moment he was really great, and I shall never forget
the nonchalance with which he drew another cigar from his case and
lighted it. The two men, who had found their calm as the danger
thickened, were in perfect accord; and, as one descended the ladder to
the engine-room with slow steps, the other went again to the tower,
where I followed him.

"Boy," he said, "I've often wondered how this old ship would break up;
now we'll see, but she's going to bite some of 'em yet, if she can't
last."

"Are you going to run for it?" I asked.

"Run for it, with two engines, yes; but it's a poor business. And we'll
have to fight! Well, who knows? There's luck at sea as well as on
shore. If I run, they'll catch me in ten miles; but we'll all do what
we can. Now smoke and have a brandy-and-soda. You may not get another."

The drink I took, but his calm I could not share. If the nameless ship
were trapped at last I had freedom; but of what sort? The freedom of a
bloody fight, the lottery of life, the remote possibility that, the
ship being taken, I should get to the shelter of the war-vessels. The
man soon undeceived me on both points.

"If we're out-manoeuvred and crippled in what's coming," said he, "I
have given Karl my orders. This ship I've built and loved like a child
isn't going to knuckle under to any man living. She's going to sink,
lad, and we're all going to blazes with her! What's the odds? A man
must die! Let him die on his own dunghill, say I, and a fig for the
reckoning! We shall last out as long as we can, and then we'll let the
cylinders fill with hydrogen, and blow her up. But you're not smoking."

The threat, so jaunty yet so terrible, was almost like a sentence of
death to me. I looked from the glass of the tower, and saw the foremost
ironclad but two miles away from us, and the others were sweeping round
to cut us off if we attempted flight. In the old days, with the
nameless ship at the zenith of her power, we should have laughed at
their best efforts--have flown from them as a bird from a trap. But we
lay with but two eng